


Ain't It The Truth?

by yarroway



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Gen, Lies, Male Friendship, Mind Games, mini golf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-30
Updated: 2015-03-30
Packaged: 2018-03-20 09:33:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3645396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yarroway/pseuds/yarroway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everybody lies, but House lies a lot.  Or does he?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ain't It The Truth?

**Author's Note:**

> Set in S7 between the House-Cuddy breakup and Thirteen's return.  
> Thanks: to Srsly_yes for beta duty and gnome-y inspiration  
> Disclaimer:House, M.D. belongs to David Shore, Universal Television, Heel and Toe Productions, and a lot of other people who are not me. I'm not making any money from this.

**Monday**

 

After working a day and a half straight through, with only a few hours of restless sleep snatched in the oncology lounge, Foreman was headed home. To his own bed in his own house, where he'd wake up sometime tomorrow and take a shower and have a cup of coffee that didn't taste like it had been made on a machine that hadn't been cleaned in ten years.

He was so tired that he wanted to rest his head against the wall until the elevator arrived. But he stood straight, shoulders back and head up. After all these years, it was automatic. He'd probably stand that way when he was dead.

The door dinged open. His pager chose that exact moment to go off. He sighed and checked it, letting the elevator slide closed without him. The nurse's station was paging him. Their patient was in cardiac arrest.

If Foreman took a moment to fantasize about leaving the patient to the crash team, at least he did it while running to help.

He raced into the room, and skidded to a halt. The patient was sitting up in bed talking with his sister. They turned towards him in blank confusion.

Someone had sent him a fake page. If Foreman weren't so damn angry he thought he might just curl up and cry. But of course he did neither of these things. Instead he adjusted the strap of his briefcase and took the stairs, one at a time, all the way down.

 

**Tuesday**

 

Lisa Cuddy rubbed her aching eyes, careless of the make-up she was smudging. Quarterly reports were dull reading, and she hadn't been sleeping well since even before the breakup. These days she stayed awake half the night going over and over things in her head. Then either she'd cry or Rachel would wake up, and she'd end up getting only a few hours of rest before she had to come in to work the next morning.

She'd screwed up. She hated screwing up. The Board had reamed her out, the hospital lawyer had scheduled a 'discussion session' with her tomorrow afternoon, and Cuddy was seriously considering sending out feelers for another job.

House poked his head into her office, "You wanted to see me?"

She kept her voice even and cool. "Your departmental budget report was due a month ago."

"You didn’t care about that when we were on the barter system."

Leave it to House to be difficult.

"I want it on my desk by the end of the week."

House looked at her for a long moment. "In Okinichi Langur Monkey troops, males bring the females food and build them nests in exchange for sexual acts."

Cuddy rolled her eyes at this transparent ploy. "I am not having sex with you. After everything that's happened I'd appreciate it if you didn't bring that up again."

"Okay," he said easily, and left.

That had gone better than she'd feared. Maybe some things could still be salvaged. Cuddy went into the bathroom to fix her mascara.

 

**Wednesday**

 

"Masters!"

She jumped, dropping her old, battered copy of Gödel, Escher, Bach onto the floor. She scrambled to retrieve it.

"Put the Nancy Drew book away and get in here," House said, gesturing her into his office. He followed her in and stood, looming over her.

"You took vacation time the last two days. Where were you?"

"I had exams."

"You used vacation time to study?"

"Yes," she said, wondering if she'd done something wrong.

"Huh. Do you masturbate?"

"What?" she squeaked, and immediately kicked herself. He was trying to get a rise out of her, like the bullies in school, and she'd reacted. Now she was in for it.

"It's a simple question. You dress like a little girl and you act like a little girl…but you're not a little girl, are you? Yet you have no social life--and by that I mean you don't have sex. In fact, sex embarrasses you…"

Masters tuned him out. Her face felt like it was on fire, though, so she knew she was blushing. She started mentally reciting the Fibonacci sequence to calm herself. She paused at 317,811 to hear what he was saying. House had a tendency to interrupt himself to ask questions, and she wanted to be ready.

"… You've stayed in school as long as you could, getting degree after degree to keep from graduating and joining the adults. You're afraid to grow up. In school, someone's always there to give you a pat on the head for being smart. In the real world, no one gives a crap how smart you are." House paused to let her embarrass herself, but Masters had learned the rules of this game way back in first grade, and remained silent.

He looked disappointed. "So, I've decided that I've been remiss. I'm going to give you a real workplace experience. See that stack of papers?"

She looked over. There was no stack, per se, just a morass of papers and folders in what might once have been a pile.

"Somewhere in there is a memo on how the budget reports are being prepared this year. You're going to find it. After you do, you're going to go through the rest of the papers and all our back cases, and assemble the report. I want it on my desk by Friday morning."

Was this another jab at her, or did he mean it? There was no way she could get through all this by Friday. Masters wasn't sure she could do it even if they didn't have a patient, but they did.

"Is this a joke?" she asked hesitantly.

"Am I laughing?"

"N-no, but--"

"Then it's not a joke. It's time to make yourself useful around here. Welcome to the real world, baby."

Masters didn't move. Was this really part of her job? She could go to Cuddy and complain but if this was really something she was supposed to do then she'd look bad.

"Have the others done this too?"

"Of course. The world is a fair place where everyone gets treated equally. You're all taking turns doing my paperwork."

Masters hesitated. House said so many things sarcastically that she could never tell what he meant and what he didn't. She wasn't much good at reading people.

"Go ahead," House urged. "I suggest you hurry. Cause if you miss this deadline, you're fired."

 

**Thursday**

 

"Okay," House said, breaking up the DDX. "Masters, you keep on the paperwork. Foreman, rule out neurological complications. Taub, do the MRI. Chase…hang on a minute."

Chase lingered, waiting as the others filed out. He wondered what House wanted. Maybe he and Wilson were going speed dating again? That had been an eye-opener of a night. He'd do that again just for the girls, though beating House at a game was its own special brand of joy.

"It's big of you," House said.

"What is?" Chase asked in confusion.

"I expected you to get upset, maybe hit me again or screw up a procedure." House shook his head dismissively. "I was wrong. You're all grown up now. Go find out if our new patient has ever been in Asia."

"What are you talking about?"

House rested his chin in his hand. "Interesting. Either you still love Cameron enough that you want her to be happy even if that means dating me, or you're completely over her and don't care. Which is it?"

At Chase's stunned silence, House continued, "You're not going to tell me, are you? Maybe you're not as over her as I thought."

So House was dating Cameron now, and he thought Chase knew. He was trying to find out how Chase felt about it. Or was House just messing with him? Chase wasn't sure. Cameron's crush on House had predated their involvement and had run throughout their marriage. Chase hadn't minded that at the time. He'd felt totally secure, which went to show how little he'd understood his wife.

Was Cameron still interested in House? Maybe. Probably, but that didn't mean they were dating. He decided to call and ask her if House was just jerking him around or if it were true.

Calling Cameron had its risks. If she was involved with House, she might lie about it. It would be better to go see her. She'd have trouble lying to his face. Her conscience would get in her way.

He couldn't drive out to Cameron's that evening, though, because he had a date lined up with Sophia for tonight. He'd have to cancel on her, and she wouldn't give him a second chance if he did that. What did he care, really, who Cameron was dating? They were divorced. If Cameron had decided to try to make it work with House, good for her. Chase would try to be a decent enough man to be happy for them both.

Chase spent the next hour taking extensive notes on their patient's relatives and travel history. When he was done he slipped his phone out and texted Sophia to call off their date.

 

**Friday**

 

Taub was in the lab running all the tests House-the-bastard had ordered to find an infection Taub knew Denise MacAvoy didn't have, when the bastard himself sauntered in. Taub proffered the results that were ready and said dryly, "It's not bacterial."

"I didn’t think it was."

"Two hours ago you said it was," Taub answered stubbornly.

"No, two hours ago I said it probably was. That was before I saw the patient. You didn’t tell me she's got hirsutism."

"And this matters because?"

"Because it tells us what's wrong with her."

It did? It didn't tell Taub anything, except that she needed depilatory cream. Could this be hormonal? Or chemical? Taub wracked his brain but couldn't remember anything that explained her symptoms, and House was standing there knowing Taub didn't know, enjoying his ignorance as much as he enjoyed mocking Taub's infidelities and failed marriage.

House showed no sign of elaborating. Taub prodded, "Would you like to share, or should I take out the ICD and start guessing?"

House tilted his head, and Taub knew he was being judged for not being up on whatever rare condition this poor woman had.

"She has lycanotharitemia. Start her on the treatment and monitor her white count. Page me if it dips too low." House walked out.

Lycano…Taub thought that sounded familiar somehow, but he couldn't place it. Was it some kind of protein deficit? A hormonal condition? He wasn't sure. "I don't know the treatment," he called after House.

House paused but did not turn back around. "Then catch up on your journal reading," he spat, and walked away.

Damn him.

 

**Saturday**

 

Wilson brought the balls and scorecard over to House.

"Pay up," House said, extending his hand and waving it at Wilson. "They all bought it."

Wilson dropped a golf ball into House's outstretched palm.

House looked at it. "I'm pretty sure the stakes were a hundred bucks a piece. But if you want to pay in mini golf fees, I'm okay with that."

Wilson smiled. He gestured House to go first.

House hit the ball, which rolled straight down the green, up and over a little wooden bridge, and dropped into the hole. He turned to Wilson and caught an appreciative glint in the other man's eyes. House raised his eyebrows in silent challenge. Wilson sometimes had trouble calculating the degree of force needed to get his ball over the bridges.

"The Cameron thing was genius," Wilson admitted as he lined up his own shot. "Telling Masters that the world is fair and she's just taking her turn was ridiculous, but she--didn't precisely disbelieve you. The fake diagnosis was inspired. You get bonus points, of course, for inventing a new term for lycanthropy and diagnosing a patient with it." Wilson swung. He wasn't having any bridge trouble today. His ball went straight into the hole. "The fake page was cheating, though. You knew Foreman had to respond."

"It wasn't whether he responded, it was how," House answered as they walked to the next hole. Wilson placed his ball on the tee.

"He should have known that it wasn't real," House continued just as Wilson started his swing. Wilson checked it in time. "Sjogren's and secondary Reynaud's don't cause heart problems."

House paused. As Wilson was on his downswing, House added, "Besides, it was how Foreman responded before and after, not whether he went, that was the interesting part. You just don’t want to give me five hundred bucks."

Wilson's swing connected despite this interruption, and the ball rolled through the windmill and wound up inches from the hole.

Wilson gave him a sardonic smile. "As entertaining as it was watching Foreman pretend to be invincible," Wilson said, "that part was his lie, not yours. It was a good prank, though, so I'll pay you for that one."

But Wilson didn't pay. He and House concentrated on playing the next several holes. The start of the eighth found them tied.

House addressed the ball. He positioned his angle precisely. He knew from prior games here that if he hit it just right he might make this hole in one shot. House drew back his putter and swung.

"Cuddy," Wilson said loudly.

House's ball careened out of control, crossed the adjacent green, and plopped into the steam that meandered around the course.

He turned to Wilson with a poisonous glare.

"She mentioned that you'd been nice to her. Was that the lie?" Wilson asked, ambling over to retrieve House's ball. He shook the water off, and handed it over.

House placed the ball back onto the tee. Wilson was conspicuously silent during the three strokes it took him to make the hole.

Wilson obviously expected retaliation, but a glimmer of an idea was forming in House's mind, so he let him off easy. He waited for Wilson to be ready to swing, and then answered his earlier question.

"Technically the lie was the monkeys I made up. The niceness was just a manipulation."

"I see, you had to manipulate her into thinking you'd been nice, which left you free to consider yourself the bad guy. Yes, you're clearly over her."

"I manipulated her into asking me to quit flirting with her. Which means she has to quit flirting with me. The fact that I phrased it in such as way as to make her think I still find her desirable and therefore made her feel better was purely coincidental."

"Obviously," Wilson said. He sounded deeply amused. He made the hole in two strokes, and swaggered his way over to the ninth hole.

House focused on his game for the next several holes, which would normally have put him safely in the lead. Unfortunately their banter had put Wilson in a competitive mood, and at the 13th hole they were only one apart.

House watched as Wilson positioned himself carefully, concentrating fiercely on the ball. This hole was deceptively simple--if you hit the fiberglass gnome in the corner in the right place, the ball sailed into the hole. If you didn't, it went into the sand.

Wilson readied himself, drew back, and…

"I'm going off Vicodin."

Wilson froze. He gave a small, bitter laugh and hit the ball. It rolled straight into the gnome's blue shoes, bounced off at a perfect right angle, and sunk into the hole. "If you're trying to lie to me now, you'll have to do better than that."

They headed to the next green. "I was thinking of going back on methadone instead."

"Are you trying to fool me or torture me?"

"Why can't I do both?" House wanted to know. This hole was one of his favorites, and he sunk a hole in one. Wilson took several strokes to make it here, and House was ahead by three.

After that, Wilson seemed to become inured to House's statements. When he mentioned amputating his leg, Wilson made a bionic man joke. When he threatened to move in with Bonnie, Wilson pointed out that walking Hector would be good exercise. When House told Wilson he loved him, Wilson merely huffed in amusement. When House said he'd been approached to start up a Diagnostic Center at UI Urbana-Champaign at twice his current salary, Wilson commented how nice it would be for House to live so much closer to his mother.

This was the type of reaction House had counted on.

At the 18th they were again tied. This last hole was the hardest. House made it in four strokes, which meant that Wilson would probably win, because he usually made it in three.

Fortunately, House had already planned out his endgame.

By now Wilson was pausing every so often to wait for each new lie. House interrupted Wilson's positioning several times with throat clearing and a strategically placed cough or two. By the time Wilson's arm went back, House could tell he was thoroughly annoyed.

"You're awfully complacent for a guy who's about to owe me six hundred bucks," he commented.

"Five hundred," Wilson corrected.

"It'll be six if I get you to believe a lie."

"You're changing the bet to include me? I hope you brought your checkbook, because you'll owe me a hundred back if you don't."

"You're changing the bet to get hundred back if I can't fool you?"

"Yep."

"Well, it won't matter," House said, hearing the cockiness in his voice, "because you already did."

"I haven't believed a word you've said."

"I know. Problem is, one of the things I told you was true."

Wilson rolled his eyes. "That's the lie," he accused.

"Nope, that's a true statement about the lies. Unless, of course, I'm lying about that."

Wilson grinned. He double-checked his position. Then his head came up and he dropped his club. He whirled around to face House.

"It's not the methadone? House, you stopped breathing! You can't--"

As fun as it was to mess with Wilson and as nice as those six hundred dollars would be, the fear in Wilson's voice wasn't something House enjoyed.

"It's not methadone."

"House," Wilson pleaded.

"It's not methadone," House assured him. "I was a crappy doctor on methadone."

"You haven't cared much about that recently," Wilson said with one hand on the back of his neck, but he sounded somewhat appeased. "Then which one was true?"

"You'll have to figure that one out for yourself. I just didn't want you to hyperventilate before we could finish the game."

Wilson picked up his club, but didn't move.

House smiled. Wilson would go back over every single thing he'd said and try to determine which, if any, of them was true. While his mind was churning over all of that, it would not be on the game.

Sure enough, Wilson was distracted. The mini golf game was declared a tie, but House, six hundred dollars richer, had won the game he cared about most.


End file.
